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Sunday, November 16, 2014

iPads are amazing learning instruments that can improve
instruction and student engagement dramatically.Those of us privileged enough to work in 1:1
iPad classrooms can attest to that.But
lets be realistic: most classrooms around the world do not have access to the
funds and resources necessary to equip a full classroom with iPads for each
student.There are numerous teachers who
have access to only one iPad at school, or they just own an iPad and think it
would be a great idea to be able to use in the classroom. Luckily, there are several EdTech tools
teachers can use in the One iPad Classroom in order to create lessons that are
exciting, and provide unique educational experiences for all students.

Apple TV in the One
iPad Classroom

An Apple TV can literally transform the One iPad Classroom
into an collective interactive experience for all students.Due to the fact that the Apple TV supports
AirPlay and mirroring, it is able to provide visual access of the iPad screen
to all of the students in the classroom.With the help of the little black box, the teacher can transform the
iPad into a high definition portable document viewer that can be used to show
teacher and student work in real time.Furthermore the combination of an Apple TV with an iPad can enhance
several parts of an everyday lesson.For
example, a teacher can use a digital book on the iPad to implement a read aloud.The read aloud can now become
interactive.As the teacher reads the
text from anywhere in the room, any student can use the iPad to highlight,
annotate, and insert text and captions, transforming a simple read aloud
activity to a highly engaging experience for all of the students.An Apple TV is a great investment for One
iPad Classrooms because it allows the teacher to craft highly engaging lessons
that promote creativity and create spaces for collective engagement.

Aurasma in the One
iPad Classroom

Augmented Reality has always been a captivating
concept.People love watching impressive
animations appear out of nowhere and provide the viewer with additional
information that enhances the learning experience.Aurasma is a free augmented reality app that
can be used in the One iPad Classroom by students working collaboratively. Students can take turns and use the iPad to
take pictures of their work and turn them into time-lapse videos, or make short
videos of each other explaining a math, reading, writing, or science concept.Students that are technologically savvy can
take it a step further and use appsmash and apps like iMovie or Tellagami to
create even more sophisticated products as shown in the video below.

The students can work collaboratively and use these pictures
and videos to create auras and triggers.The teacher can post the triggers-images around the classroom, and the
students can use the iPad collectively or individually to make the
pictures-triggers come alive.

An Apple TV can easily transform the above activity from
individual, to a collective educational experience.By mirroring the iPad on the projector’s
screen, every single student becomes an active participant of the lesson and
the whole classroom is engaged in continuous learning.

Plickers in the One
iPad Classroom

Up until a few years ago, audience response systems were
extremely expensive, difficult to navigate and utilize, and often needed
additional tech equipment, usually a smartboard, in order to function.The introduction of tablets and laptops at
schools changed that, as highly affordable, extremely effective, and completely
free of charge apps and platforms such as Socrative and Kahoot made audience
response systems user friendly and easily accessible.However, these platforms require that each
student has access to a digital device.Luckily,
there is an audience response system that One iPad Classroom teachers can
utilize in the classroom to collect real time data from formative assessments, and
its name is Plickers.

Pickers is an empowering application because it is armed
with the unique ability to change the mundane task of taking a test into a
highly interactive and enjoyable lesson that results in an authentic learning
experience.

Plickers is very easy to set up and once it is up and
running, it can be used by teachers to create assessments, exit tickets, or
just simple questions.Plickers allows
the teacher to collect data in order to check student understanding in formal
and informal ways, and it does so very intuitively, with the help of only one
iPad and a number of cards with QR Codes.Each card corresponds to a specific student.The cards are equipped ingeniously with four options,
which the students can select by just turning the card to a different
orientation.Teachers can use Plickers
to spice up their lessons and engage students with the platform’s kinesthetic approach
and its capacity to give students the chance to interact with the lesson
collectively.

Want to learn more about integrating the iPad and other EdTech tools in your classroom?

Monday, November 10, 2014

Thank you to all of you who contacted me after you read my last post on Daily Genius on app smashing. Many of you have asked for a specific example. Here is the step-by-step process of seven app smashing examples . You do not have to use ALL of the steps, as you can pick and choose depending on what you want to accomplish.

a)Tellagami
– Tellagami – Camera – iMovie – Camera

Create
multiple Tellagamies and save them in Camera.Open iMovie and import all the Tellagamies.Trim videos to remove the Tellagami logo. Add
pictures, background music, transition effects.Save final product in the Camera app.

b)Safari
(for pictures) – Camera (for video)-Tellagami – VideoMix

Using
safari, do a modified Google search for copyrighted images that are labeled for
reuse. Save an image on Camera.Open
Tellagami, use the pictures as a background.Create Tellagami videos and/or videos using the Camera App.Save every video on Camera.Open VideoMix and import the pictures and
videos you want.Create your VideoMix
and save in Camera. Make sure you check the “play sequentially” box so that the
videos will not run simultaneously.

c)Keynote
– GarageBand

Open
Keynote and create 2 slides.Set the
animation and transitions on “after previous”.Start GarageBand, tap on Songwriter. Tap on “Apple Loops” on the upper
right corner and choose your beat.Export your beat by tapping on “share” then “export your song to
disk”.Go back to Keynote, and import
the beat.Then tap on “File”, “export
to” and then Quick Time.Save the file
as a video.

d)Haiku
Deck – Mail – Movenote – Camera

Open
Haiku Deck and create a 3-4 slide show.Save it as PDF and email it to yourself.Go to Mail, open your email, tap on the PDF, then tap on “open in”, and
then Movenote.Use your slides to create
your video. Save the video in Camera.

e)Camera
and/or Tellagami (for video)- Animoto – Mail

Using
Camera and/or Tellagami, create multiple 4-5 seconds videos.Bring the videos in Animoto.Import text slides in your project and
combine them with the videos to emphasize the main points in your videos.Enrich your Animoto with pictures.Save your Animoto and email it to your
teacher.

f)Notes
– WordSalad – Camera – Tellagami – Camera- ThinkLink

Using
Notes make a list of words about your planet/star.Separate the words by commas.Copy the list of words and paste them in
WordSalad.Change the appearance, color,
and style. Save several word clouds in Camera.Open Tellagami and use one of the word clouds for a background.Record and save your Tellagami in
Camera.Create a ThinkLink, use a word
cloud as a background and bring in all the videos.Share a link to your ThinkLink with your
teacher.

Use WordSalad and the method described above.
Save pictures in Camera. Using safari, do a modified Google search for
copyrighted images that are labeled for reuse. Save the images on Camera. Start
VideoScribe and import pictures, texts, and word Clouds.Create your video and save it on Camera.